


My Name

by Sevi (KelSevi)



Category: Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
Genre: Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 22:41:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8178749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KelSevi/pseuds/Sevi
Summary: In that moment, Hijiri remembers everything. He also remembers someone else.





	

Isamu is taunting the tattoo kid again over the Amala Network. Something about how he was being manipulated, or whatever. Hijiri has long since tuned his irritating voice out. Not that that’s hard, what with the Magatsuhi crawling under his skin, filling him and draining him at the same time. It’s exhausting and uncomfortable. **  
**

He wants a drink. Actually, he could go for a whole bottle right now. Anything to dull the pain, and anyway, he deserves to enjoy what life he has left.

…What a joke. He’s not alive. He knows it as much as Isamu knows it. He wouldn’t be sitting in this dumb crucified pose otherwise, collecting Magatsuhi by the ton for the little brat that caught him.

Hijiri closes his eyes and rests limply in the tangled web of Magatsuhi. There’s no point in trying to escape his fate here. Even if he did, what would he do? His body is worthless, and his soul even more so. Once he dies, it’s just going to get recycled again, to go do some other meaningless bullshit for the eyes of some meaningless… _being,_ that he somehow wronged in some meaningless past life.

He’s going to have to go through this all over again, and he won’t remember a damn thing.

Suddenly, he remembers something else, instead.

* * *

“You have something on your face…”

Hijiri glanced down at the woman riding beside him in the crowded train. She was staring intently at him, as if she’s been staring at him for a good couple of minutes. A tad surprised, he ran his hand over his face in one single motion.

She shook her head and touched her upper lip. He touched his own in response, and rubbed away the remnants of cake frosting. It was from the cake slice he snatched from the lead editor of Ayakashi Monthly while she wasn’t looking, and subsequently had to eat while being run out of the building.

She smiled apologetically at him, and he smiled back. His eyes then carried him elsewhere, to zone out once again and think about what he was going to scrounge up for dinner back at his apartment…

……………She was still staring at him. He could feel her gaze on the back of his neck, and he faced her once again. “Is there still something else?”

The woman looked surprised, and she shook her head. “Oh, no, um… It’s just, you look so familiar. I was trying to decide if we had ever met before, but I don’t think we have…”

“Ah.” Hijiri furled his brows and began to study the woman before him. She had wavy blond hair and fair skin, and appeared to be… some sort of secretary? Perhaps an office worker? Whatever she did, it must have raked in the yen because her hands are adorned with colorful bands and rings. But then why was she taking the subway? Was she trying to avoid something? Someone…?

Seeing as that didn’t ring any bells, he stared right into her face. It felt a bit awkward, as while he studied her, she studied him right back. The most prominent feature she had was a mole under her left eye.

That’s strange, he thought. Then he paused.

How could _that_ be strange?

“…No, it was just my imagination. I’m sorry to have bothered you,” the woman muttered suddenly, and she quickly bowed her head.

Hijiri shook his head. “No, no, it’s quite alright.” Something about her face was giving him a serious case of deja vu. And he was never someone who let the scent of a new mystery escape him. “Uh… might I get your name? Maybe it’ll help. Mine is Hijiri Jyoji.”

Pensively, the woman glanced away from Hijiri to mull over the new information, but she seemed to have come up short when she gave him another apologetic smile. “… I’m sorry, it really seems like I don’t know you. It must just be a mistake.”

Hijiri looked crestfallen, until the woman spoke up again.

“I… suppose I could afford you my name, at least. Since you were so kind to hear me out.”

It must have amused her to see him break into a huge grin, because she chuckled as she told him,

“You see, my name is…”

… … …?

* * *

Isamu gives Hijiri a thumbs down. Hijiri looks away from him, toward the tattoo kid watching helplessly behind Isamu. He smiles back just as helplessly.

“Ha ha ha… Try your best, kid…”

His bonds unravel and drop him, and Magatsuhi suddenly fills his ears, his mouth, his veins. All of him is crushed by the incredible weight and power of raw Magatsuhi. It’s all he can feel, anymore.

The last thing he sees is his own Magatsuhi swimming away, taking his consciousness with him.

And the last thing he thinks of is not the kid, not his killer, not even the light that opened his eyes to the truth, but _her_ face, the one with the mole. What was her name, again? It’s been so long… but he could never forget a name like hers.

Hiroko, was it?

What a beautiful name.

**Author's Note:**

> The second fic I wrote, a couple of months old. May be awkward and stilted, apologies for that.
> 
> This particular fic is about a theory I have on Hijiri, and the ending of Shin Megami Tensei II. There's a lot of focus on Aleph's curse, and how it leads to Hijiri, but God specifically calls out BOTH Aleph and Hiroko, and only after that does he detail the effects of his curse. So, to that end, I presume Hiroko had also gone through the same things Aleph did...


End file.
